The 'queen' of online camcorder reviews is still in college

Type "camcorder" or "camcorder reviews" into Google, and the top result is www.camcorderinfo.com. The website attracts more than 400,000 unique visitors per month. But few readers of the most popular site for information on buying video camcorders suspect that the sole owner and CEO is a 21-year-old college student.

Robin Liss, a senior at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., a Boston suburb, started reviewing video camcorders online nine years ago when she was 12. Today the company she founded and runs has 11 full-time employees, a second site that reviews digital cameras, and ambitious plans to expand later this year into reviewing other digital gadgets such as cellphones and computer printers.

In the meantime, Ms. Liss has a little unfinished business. Before she can graduate from Tufts this spring, the political science major has to finish an 80-page honors thesis on how city governments collaborate with nonprofit groups.

Despite her two roles, she even finds time for some college student play, spending last week's spring break on a Caribbean cruise with two-dozen sorority sisters. But that was quickly followed by a weekend cross-country business trip to Los Angeles to consult with a business partner and a speedy return for classes Monday. "I think I sacrifice sleep more than anything," she says with a smile.

While her age and gender make her unusual - the electronics industry is dominated by men with advanced engineering degrees - they aren't the only things. For example, though she's a successful entrepreneur, she says her real goal in life is to serve in government. And though she's a successful businesswoman, she thinks of her website more as a news source than as a moneymaker.

"If you ask me what business I'm in, I'll tell you I'm in publishing," Liss says. "Doing the best, most standardized, most fair reviews possible is our No. 1 concentration." Her reputation has grown to the point that reviewers at The New York Times and USA Today have sought out her help in assessing new camcorders. On top of that, she makes frequent appearances on CNN television as a general electronic gadget guru.

While Liss and her team of online reviewers are proud of how tough they can be, "no one has ever accused us of being unfair," she says.

She has had to deal with manufacturers who were less than pleased. The head of the camcorder division at a major company once called her and "yelled at me for an hour about a review," Liss says. "He said, 'If I read this review, I'd think you didn't want anybody to buy this product.' [I said,] 'Well, you're absolutely right, I think it's a bad product.' "

On Liss's sites, each camera or camcorder is graded using more than 40 standard criteria. And each undergoes several unbiased technical tests, such as measuring the camera's ability to function in a low-light situation.

Her websites have an "ethics page" explaining that reviewers do not sell advertising or take gifts or free travel offers from manufacturers.

Unfortunately, that standard is not yet common at online sites. The "church and state" separation between advertising and reporting that most newspapers and many magazines adhere to isn't there, she says.

Manufacturers offer reviewers gifts like a free trip to Japan "with five-star accommodations," she says. On the other end of the equation, websites might let the same person who sells ads to manufacturers review their products. "You know - wink, wink, nudge, nudge," she says. At some sites, she notes wryly, the lowest score any product ever receives is "above average."

Liss started playing with camcorders as a child in Kalamazoo, Mich., and soon was putting her reviews online. In high school, she made "my first movie" on a camcorder, a video she called "Planet of the Moles" that used puppets to tell the story.

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